Until the End
by Wings of Dawn
Summary: Until the end of their days, without fail, whenever they were not on mission, Team Gai would meet at their training ground when the sun rose. Fifty-two snippets into the life of Team Gai.


When Iruka made Team Gai, he wasn't just thinking about grades. He knew Maito Gai was the only one he could give such a broken team to.

Rock Lee was one of the many orphans that resulted from Konoha's not-so-distant bloody past. Unable to use an form of ninjutsu or genjutsu, the laughing-stock of his year, and stubborn beyond belief, Lee was, without a doubt, made to be Gai's student.

Tenten's past was a mystery, seen in her non-existent last name. When she had first arrived at the academy she had been cheerful, determined, with a bit of a temper. Every year, though, Iruka watched the fire in her eyes die a little bit more as she struggled to keep up her grades. She passed practical examinations with flying colors, but the written tests... Somewhere amongst struggling to keep up her grades, differentiate herself from the typical kunoichi image, and improve her natural ability with weapons – she broke.

Hyuga Neji was broken from the moment he walked into the academy. Iruka knew from the start that only someone as persistent as Gai could break through the shell of rage, bitterness, and hatred surrounding him – even if paring up the personalities was a bit of a gamble.

As expected, Gai immediately determined he _must_ become connected to his students. He yearned to feed Lee's fire, restart the passion missing from Tenten's eyes as she stated her goal, and get Neji to relax and at least _smile._

As everyone knew, Lee was the first to fall to Gai's unique charm. It was a generally accepted story.

As suspected, Tenten fell next, though few knew how or how soon.

Tenten supported Neji from the start. He was powerful, and Lee was wasting his time struggling. 

The part of Tenten that disagreed with Neji's view on fate was surprisingly small. She had given up struggling long ago.

Many things held Tenten back: growing up alone, difficulty in school, a seeming lack of improvement, the expectations for kunoichi, rejections, and failures.

One day she snapped – at Lee. She screamed and yelled, stating all the reasons he should give up, and that _he was only going to hurt himself._

Neither knew Gai had overheard the entire thing.

Gai tended to Lee first, reassuring him that his fight was not worthless. He also told him his guess: that the reason Tenten was so angry- so desperate -was that she saw a piece of herself in him.

When it came to understanding people, Gai was almost never wrong.

Gai found Tenten training alone that night.

Tenten always trained when she didn't want to think.

That night Tenten fell to Gai's charm. He coaxed her out of her self-created defeat with gentle, confident words. That night Tenten decided that _maybe_ it was time to start fighting again.

The next day Lee was once again defeated – easily and mercilessly – by Neji. Once again, Neji scoffed and walked away. This time, however, Lee did not struggle back to his feet with a declaration that he would some day win. Instead he just laid there, staring up at the sky. Tenten did not rebuke his efforts and walk away as usual. Instead, she just stared.

Exactly five minutes passed in that manner. Finally, Tenten walked over and offered him her hand. Their eyes met, and they understood.

Tenten envied Lee's ability to fight. She was upset because she understood his failures, angry because she was afraid to hope, and yelled because she didn't want to cry.

Lee? Lee just wanted a friend, someone who would believe.

Together they were ready to fight the so-called fate that Lee would amount to nothing and that Tenten would always be a mediocre kunoichi.

Tenten made a change – no longer was she blindly adoring Neji. She still cared and supported, but it was often over-shadowed by her fighting to knock him down from his high-horse, and smash some sense and compassion into his head.

The next day, they discovered that Tenten hadn't been giving training her all. When she tried, she had perfect aim.

Later, due to their help, she didn't even have to try.

Long before Neji (begrudgingly) asked (read: ordered) Tenten to help him learn rotation, she was Lee's sparring partner.

Lee had inherited Gai's strange understanding of people in the fact that when Lee looked at someone, he could see their potential.

That was the reason for Lee's declaration to Sakura: he saw what she could become.

The chuunin exams marked a turning point for the team. It wasn't a sudden, drastic change, but it was a start.

"Don't prove me right." That statement was the closest Neji came to saying he was wrong for a long time.

This phrase came immediately after, "If you give up, you prove me right," and was delivered stoically to Lee a week and five days after the chunin exams ended – eight days after learning Lee's possible fate.

Contrary to popular belief, Neji did not tell someone about his blind spot after recovering from surgery.

Many months later, however, he informed his full team.

If anyone noticed that Neji brought it up while Lee was feeling particularly self-conscious about his own weakness, no one mentioned it.

Within the next week Neji fell completely to Gai's charm – not that he'd ever admit it.

When Tenten realized she was falling behind, she was terrified she wouldn't be able to spar with either of her team-mates.

She began to memorize how her friends attacked, copying them in secret training sessions to find weaknesses.

The next day, she surprised them all by sending Lee sprawling on his back – it didn't happen often, but it did mark the start of a sharp climb in her improvement.

Once she threw in an improvised version of one of Neji's attacks while sparring with the prodigy. It startled him so much she ended up giving him a large gash on his arm.

It was never spoken of, but Lee beat Neji once.

Neji always said he allowed Lee to win.

Neji was lying.

Lee and Tenten knew it.

One day, when Lee and Gai were once again claiming that they would make a three day trip in one day, and Tenten was once again protesting in vain, Neji remained strangely unaffected. "I think," he replied slowly upon inquiry by the weapon's mistress, "That this is an inside joke of theirs."

Neji knew his team-mates would be watching his blind spot. He had even seen the slight shifts in their attack formations where they remained watchful. However, knowing was very different from seeing Tenten with a bloody hole through her body because of_ his_ mistake.

When she woke up, he was there. Few words were exchanged, but they were unneeded. When he stood to leave, he dropped a kiss on her lips.

In the next few weeks the team was torn apart for the third great ninja war.

Most people saw Tenten as more average compared to her teem-mates. They never remembered that to remain Neji's sparring partner, one had to consistently present a challenge.

Years later, Neji made another mistake. Seeing the wound the second time, in Lee, wasn't any easier.

It was a bit of a struggle with the traditionalist elders, but Tenten took on the name Hyuga.

Several years later, the two Hyugas attended the wedding of Rock Lee and Sakura Haruno.

Until the end of their days, without fail, whenever they were not on mission, Team Gai would meet at their training ground when the sun rose.


End file.
